29 hours of goodness.

Here's an outline of the super duper short trip my family made to come out for my graduation.  Most of it involved food.  Fabulous food.

It began on Friday night when my family arrived and we hopped right into the car to drive to dinner with my wonderful friend, Lisa, and her family.  It was Friday night traffic in the Denver Tech Center, which, if you don't know, is pretty awful.  It took a while to get places.  Anyway, this first picture is with Lisa and her brother Ben, who I was really excited to finally meet.  We ate at Claim Jumper and it was REAL yummy!  I pretended that I wasn't allergic to milk and ate whatever the heck I wanted.  I LOVED the cheesebread.  Yum.

After dinner we headed back to the apartment and played mariokart on the wii for a while.  Clay kicked my butt, as expected.  On Saturday, I had graduation ceremony in the morning.  They gave me a "diploma," which as you will see doesn't have a name on it or anything.  I had to give it back anyway because I technically already received a diploma in December.  It was also kind of a bummer that the only thing I got to keep, my tassel, says "2010" on it, when I graduated in 2009.  

And here's me with my favorite brother in the whole world.  I wish he could've stayed with us for a few days extra.  He's a funny guy.

Pastor Steve, his wife Darlene, and their grandson found me after the ceremony.  It was super sweet because Pastor Steve just finished a 30-day silent retreat by himself, and it was nice that he still knew how to talk.  He is technically on sabbatical for the next few months and he and Darlene were heading off to Israel that evening.

And here's me with one of my most favorite women in the world: Sharon!  She's the administrative coordinator in the counseling department (used to be my boss), an amazing woman and amazing friend.  She told me after she got a picture with me that she came to graduation just for me, which still brings a huge smile to my face.  What a lovely lady and a blessing to me!

After all the festivities, we headed to hotel to pick up cars and ended up with a picture of me by a tree.  Whoot.  It turned out to be a nice day weather-wise!

We took a family picture as we got back to my apartment.  I know at least I was starving because we were ready to head to my favorite Chinese restaurant.  I wish I had pictures to share from that experience, but my stomach was very thankful.  I'm pretty sure I mostly ate eggrolls and saved my meal for later. :)

After lunch, my family headed back to the hotel for a siesta while Jake and I went to a graduation party for a friend.  After the party: ROCKIES GAME!  We were so thankful that the weather cooperated and we got to go.  My dad was real smart and nice and got us seats that sat right under an overhang so that we'd be ok if it rained.  Smart cookie is what my dad is.  Mmmm....cookies.... I want one.  Oh!  And we also went to our favorite vendor just outside the stadium.  You can get 2 hot dogs, chips, and a 24 oz drink for $5 and can bring it into the stadium.  Fabulous.

So that was the real short weekend, but it was oober fun.  As my friend Lisa has said, "I'm so sad it's over."  (She was referring to her Krispy Creme donut, however.)  Now I need to drive home from church so that I can eat lunch.  I'm starving.  All this talk of good food.... LEFTOVERS!!!  Yum.